London Baby!

This month Tom and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary.  7 loooong years.  My wedding day was up there as one of the best days of my life so far, I loved it.  I planned the damn thing over 2 years, turned into a total Bridezilla - freaked out at the venue as they didn't have white table cloths, just dusky pink - who has dusky pink?! Not me - so I paid a stupid amount of money for white ones so they would "match" my colour scheme.  Everything was planned to the very last tiny detail and it all went like clockwork - well, except my heel falling off my shoe, but at that point I didn't really care.

7 years down the line and here we are.  Married, 2 kids, working, mortgage....all very dull, boring, mundane shit.  Plodding along.  We don't speak much now- after 7 years you kinda have fuck all to talk about unless it's to do with the kids, money or what to watch on TV.  In fact we spend more time arguing than we do talking (or nagging as I'm sure Tom will call it) Life just ticks along. 

We normally do something "nice" for our anniversary - a wee treat to celebrate not fucking murdering each other or ending up in court filing for Divorce.  Well done us! We normally book a hotel, child free, have a few drinks, maybe a wee spa session, nice meal and all that crap.  I love a spa break, it means I get time on my own, away from Tom for a couple of hours while I have a massage.  Gives us something to talk about later.

This year Tom decided to book me a "surprise" for our anniversary.  I don't "do" surprises very well, I like to be in control and know every minute detail so I can perfect my fake "wow this is great!" look.  I gave Tom a few things I wanted for my anniversary, they were as follows:

1. Spa Hotel
2. Close to home (for child reasons)
3. Must be able to have a long lie

That was it.  My top 3 requests.  Tom decided not to listen to this and booked our weekend away.  He seemed rather excited by it all, until I started asking numerous questions and he began to get a bit fidgity.  "Have you booked me any spa treatments?"; "It's not too far away is it?"; "I can't wait for a long lie"  His wee face kinda changed from happy to "Ohhh shit.  She's going to go mental"  Eventually, after me nipping his head for a few days, Tom caved in and told me what he had planned for our weekend away. 

Now I'm going to sound very ungrateful and selfish - that's because, quite frankly, I am. It's all me, me, me around here.

Tom had booked us a night away in London.  London.  I fucking hate the place (apologies to all you Londoners out there) and it's hundreds of miles away.  Poor Imogen is being deserted by her mummy.  Lets hope I don't need to get home quickly. How are we getting there?  Flying.  I fucking hate flying.  It terrifies me.  Either the plane will blow up in the air, or it'll crash on water and I'll drown, a seagull will get sucked into the plane and will explode.  My "panic list" is endless. So far, not so good.  Then he dropped the bombshell of flight times.  Departing wasn't to bad, I'm up at the crack of dawn with the kids anyway, we had to check in by 8am.  Coming home we also had be at check in by 9am.  Check in at Luton.  We were staying at Picadilly.  That's a very early start - so no long lie. OK- so not my idea of a romantic weekend away, clutching at straws I ask him about the hotel.  It's  3* twin room.  3*!? Twin Room!?! What the very fuck.  I don't think so.  After looking up numerous reviews on Trip Advisor I make the decision to change the hotel, the reviews were awful "tiny rooms!"; "Don't stay here - it's hell!"; "You'll get no sleep it's so noisy" Great.  Just bloody wonderful. Then I'm informed that we're off to see a show on the Saturday night Les Miserables, which I love - so that's good.  Oh - did I mention the tickets were "restircted view" and in the Upper Circle.  Yes, restricted view. Sigh. And I hate heights - the last time I was in the Upper Circle I nearly fainted.  Oh well.

A wee phone call is made to the  booking operator to make a few changes.  I tell my tale of woe to the lovely man on the other end of the phone who appears to sympathise with my situation.  I moan about the shit hotel, twin room, 3*, no spa.  The tickets are shit.  So he upgrades me to a lovely 4* spa hotel at no extra cost, it's also situated at Kings Cross, which means I get an extra 15 mins in bed or something.  Sadly no change to the tickets but he assures me we will still see the stage, I'm not in front of a big pillar and I'll enjoy it.  I just need to get over my fear of heights.

The day of departure arrives and Tom has been up since 1am spewing his load.  Great.  It would appear Tom has a tummy bug.  Poor Tom.  A quick dash to Tesco for Imodium should see him right.  We get to the airport and check in.  We head to departures - Tom heads to the toilet and stays there until we need to board.  We're nearly the last ones on and Tom is really sick and has horrific bum wee. I'm also shitting it as I hate flying.  I'm convinced the man behind me is a terrorist and we're sitting at the wing, not good.  I close the blind so I can't see - but the grumpy air-hostess tells me to open it for take off.  Gah.  Tom is sitting holding his head in his hands.  My heart rate is going mental, panic, panic and then we take off.  "PING!" off goes the seatbelt sign and Tom rushes to the toilet, leaving me alone with Mr Terrorist.

The flight passes without any dramas, and we land safely in London. Once we collect our wee weekend bag it was a mad dash to the bus, then a mad dash to the train, then a taxi to the hotel.  Everything in London is a mad dash.  Not a place for dithering, it's all rush, rush, rush.  We check into the hotel to dump our stuff and for Tom to dump some other stuff..... then Tom insists that he's ok to take me on the tube to Oxford Street, I want to go to Selfridges to look at some posh bag I want and also to check that they don't just sell fridges.  Boom boom.

We wander down to the tube and attempt to work out exactly what tickets we need. It's heaving, we buy 2 ridiculously expensive tickets and head to the tube.  I also hate the tube. It's hot, dirty, sweaty and has more weirdo's in it than Aberdeen - and that's a lot of weirdo's.  We get off and head to Selfridges, Tom starting to really flag now.  We arrive and Tom disappears to the loo, leaving me to hunt down my posh bag.  Which I do, but disappointment looms when it's not the one I want, it's the wrong leather print.  Oh well.  We grab lunch and decide to head back to the hotel so Tom can sleep.  What a fucking waste of a day.

Tom crashed out at the hotel and I dithered about getting ready.  We meet one of our relatives for a wee drink in the bar - one vodka and coke, one brandy and coke.  Not doubles, £16 please.  What. The. Fuck.  £16?! Ridiculous.  Then we head to the show - Tom now slightly more perky.

The show was amazing.  The seats were not as bad as I imagined, I just stayed glue'd to my seat.  Please, do go and see it, Les Miserables is fab!  Once it was over Tom thought he shold be able to stomach some food, so we headed to Pizza Hut and got a couple of pasta dishes.  Tomorrow we would discover that this was a bad idea. 

After a short sleep we're up to get the train.  We arrive at the train station to find all trains to Luton are cancelled, immediatly I'm thinking there's a bomb at the airport and panic starts to set in.  Buses have been put on to transport us all.  Tom hates buses, they make him sick.  You couldn't make it up. We try to calculate the time it will take to get there on the bus, we should make it on time.  A taxi will cost, apparently £80, which I refuse to pay.  So bus it is.

We arrive on time, check-in, get brekkie and head to departures.  Well, I do - Tom disappears into the toilet.  And this is where he stays until we have 15 mins to get on the plane.  Last night's lasagne was a bad idea.  It's a 10 min walk to the departure gate and no toilets available en route. On dear.  But we make it without Tom having any erm....problems... and get on the plane.  The flight goes fine and we land in Aberdeen, exhausted and looking forward to getting home. 

The car has been kept in the Long-Stay car park.  When we collect it we have a lovely discovery.  It would appear Tom hasn't been the only one with the shits this weekend.  Bastard Aberdeen seagulls have taken a shine to my car and crapped all over it.  I'm too exhausted to rage.  I just get in and drive home and pray the kids don't have the shits either. 

Next year I think I'll be planning our Anniversary weekend.  That's if we make it to 8 years.......

Meal Times

Meal times in my household have become a bit of a drama recently.  Nope, in fact, not recently.  They have always been a bloody drama.  4 people live in the house, 4 people and 2 fat furry things.  How hard can it possibly be to feed 4 people an evening meal.  Impossible in this house it would appear.  Now, I'm no Gordon Ramsey in the kitchen, chucking stuff in an oven is about as adventurous as I get.  I have a slow cooker that I do love and do use, but with limitations. If I had time I would love to cook up great feasts - but it would probably cause a drama as a stray carrot would land on Blaine's plate (he will eat carrots - but only if thinly sliced and cut in circles, yes this is how fussy he is)

Let's start with Tom.  Tom is the fussiest person on the planet.  Here is a list of what Tom will eat:

Veggies - potatoes, onions, peas
Fruit - Apples (only Granny Smith and must not be cooked) fresh orange juice and occasionally a banana
Fish - Tuna (tinned) will eat scampi, won't eat prawns.  Figure that one out. Nothing else.
Meat - Steak, venison, chicken, corned beef (can we call that meat?!)
Other - pasta, meat paste, cheese, ham, chips, a variety of frozen shite, pizza and sometimes an omelette.

There was a time when we used to go to Tom's grandparents house every Sunday for lunch, it was great.  I remember very vividly on one particular Sunday that Tom was loading up his plate with what he thought was chips.  I sat gobsmacked as Tom piled on the "chips" along with his steak pie and peas.  He bit into a "chip" and nearly spewed.  It wasn't a chip, it was a parsnip.  I nearly pissed myself laughing. I think that was the first and last time he had ever tried a parsnip. 

Blaine is very similar to Tom - fling in super noodles, blueberries, hummus to the above list and you get the drift. 

Imogen is only 8 months - she'll try anything, but favourites include - potatoes, peas, spaghetti, mango, papaya, porridge, neep. 

Me - well, I'm a fat greedy git, I eat anything (except kidney beans - they give me the boak) but will give anything a bash - within reason.  I wouldn't eat eye-balls or anything like that.

I do a meal planner for the week most weeks, this not only saves money but it also should save time.  If Tom and Blaine had their was it would be the following:

Monday - Macaroni
Tuesday - Steak pie, chips, peas
Wednesday - Pizza, chips, beans
Thursday - Spaghetti Bolognaise (NO BITS!)
Friday - Chippy
Saturday - Waflles, beans and some frozen food crap - probably scampi
Sunday - Chilli Con Carni (No bits) Blaine would have Super Noodles

So meal-times can be a very stressful affair.  Lets look at last night. I made a wee Spaghetti Carbonara - something simple.  But I put mushrooms in it. Well, it might aswell have been poison.  Blaine refused to eat it as he doesn't like mushrooms or chicken. Or spaghetti.  He then had a hissy fit as he wanted hummus for his tea and nothing else.  Tom also had a hissy because of the mushrooms, he inspects everything that is put in front of him - incase any stray veggie has made it to his plate.  I'm not allowed to cook with things Tom doesn't like.  He gets a bit pissed off.  So he spent his time picking out every single mushroom before tasting it (I had cut them big enough for him to find easily) Imogen decided that she wasn't keen on spaghetti anymore, so I had to make her mashed potato with peas.  So 4 people and 3 different meals, Blaine eventually had toast.

Tonight was a similar affair - gammon steak, potatoes and beans.  Tom went mental as apparently it would take "too long to cook fucking potatoes, chuck something in the oven"  Blaine also went mental "I HATE potatoes, I want sausages!"  I don't have sausages.  He was given a choice of waffles - he didn't want that either, toast?! nope, beans - nope.  Fine then - nothing for Blaine.  I chose to ignore Toms complaints about gammon and potatoes being a crap tea and carried on making the potatoes.  At least I know Imogen will eat them.  Or maybe not - tonight Imogen decides she doesn't need to eat anything and screams the place down when offered her potatoes with broccoli and chicken thing, she's exhausted, nothing pleasing her, so I pull out the peaches, porridge and yoghurt's.  She eats all that.  Result.  Again 4 people and a total drama.  Give. Me. Strength.  In fact, no - give me VODKA!

Then there was the time I made a Lasagne - but I used a different sauce, it had chunky "bits" in it.  Tom put his in the bin without even tasting it.  Blaine refused to touch his.  What a total waste of time, money and effort.  Of course that went down well, as you can imagine. 

I do sometimes wonder why I bother.  If I had my way we'd eat what I wanted - they could all starve. The only time I get to eat something that I would like is when out at a restaurant and we can't afford to do that every night of the week, sadly.

At Christmas time Tom and Blaine had a different menu to myself and my mum.  We had the whole turkey and trimmings.  Tom wanted a Turkey Leg Roast (a la - Bernard Matthews) with peas and potatoes.  Pate and oatcakes for starters and Vienetta for pudding.  Mum and I had a selection of food for starters, main and pudding - well, it was Christmas - if you can't pig out then when can you!?  He also complained about the amount of food that was purchased, his moaning about this went on for days.  Fucking days.  He complained the amount that was cooked, the amount that was left over, the amount in the fridge, the amount it cost etc etc.

Tomorrow on the menu is mince and tatties.  It was going to be Bolognaise, but Tom went mental as I was going to use tinned tomatoes to make the sauce as we have no Bolognaise sauce that he likes.  So I guess I better not do that then or it'll be another meal in the bin.  Fuck sake.

Maybe one day I will hire a chef.  Pass me the voddy.

Holiday from hell. Part Two.

Last night I gave you a wee blogabout my chavtastic holiday last year, just to prepare you for tonight's installment.  Off we go then.....

This year money was super tight.  Being on maternity pay sucked, how people are expected to live off a measly £124 per week is mental, I was nearly forced to sell Tom or send him down the docks to bring some cash in.  Instead we collected those vouchers from the paper - get 10 vouchers and you to can have a Holiday from Hell for only £9.50 per person.  Well, £9.50 plus money for entertainment passes, linen, upgrades, cot hire etc etc So the total bill was more like £130 - but it's still a bargain.  I dutifully collected the vouchers every day, filled out the form with my top 5 choices and top 5 dates and kept everything crossed that we got somewhere.  And we did!  It was choice number 5 on my list, gah.  But a cheap holiday nonetheless - so can't really grumble. 

Friday morning we loaded up the car with a whole pile of shit, basically the same as in this blog but now I also had Tom's stuff to squeeze in.  That was OK - all he needed was his swim trunks, pants, t-shirt and car keys.  I had my list of usual essentials - straighteners, knickers, vodka, iPhone and charger.  That is all I need for a weekend away.  We said goodbye to the cats, handed our keys to our cat-sitter and off we popped. 

The drive to our holiday destination started well with some arse-hole practically doing an emergency stop for no fucking reason on the dualer - good job we have new tyres and brakes.  We survived that drama - Tom shouting blue murder and the total idiot in the car and my hopes of a nice relaxing nap well and truly shattered. 

We arrived at our destination after about 3 hours of driving.  Imogen was grumping as she'd had enough of being strapped into a car seat.  We drove into the holiday park and then Tom nearly drove over a chav.  A teenage chav at that.  One of these youths who thinks they don't need to look when crossing the road, maybe it's uncool nowadays not to look - far more cooler to be splatted by a car.  Tom was ever so slightly annoyed at this young person walking in front of the car, so decided to stop and remind the young man that he better look when crossing the road.  I think the words he used were "Next time I won't bloody stop" ahhhh.... welcome to our holiday.

We were slightly early for checking in, so went for a wander and some grub.  More over-priced microwave meals, but Imogen enjoyed her macaroni and Blaine, well he was far more interested in the switchies and seeing how much money he can con out of us.  Eventually we checked in.  The caravan was nice, in a quiet location (this time we scored lucky with a quieter park) appeared clean.  Imogen's cot hadn't appeared, but we had been informed it was on it's way. Great!  So far, so good.

We booked Blaine in for all his activities that he wanted to do (more bloody expense) and got chips for tea.  I unpacked and was raging to find out that the vodka hadn't actually made it into the car, Tom had left it in Aberdeen for some insane reason. Great. He would regret this I'm sure.  Then we went out to a show. Imogen's cot still hadn't appeared but, again, we were assured it was on it's way - they were just very busy. 

After the show - DJ Ned, how appropriate - we came back to the caravan to get the kids settled for bed.  Well we would have done if Imogen actually had a bed to sleep in.  Oh yes, no cot.  RAGE.  So Blaine eventually settled in his bed and Imogen had to co-sleep with me while Tom attempted to squeeze his large frame into a single bed.  I say "single" it's more like 3/4 size.  Definitely a bed for a child, not an adult.  Imogen decided that sleeping like a star fish was the way forward and sprawled herself out in our double bed (well, not really a double - a big single more like) so I was dangling on the edge, everytime I moved she complained - so not much sleep was had.  I was up with Imogen at the crack of dawn (caravans don't appear to have black-out blinds, tut) and wandered about the caravan still half asleep.  Eventually Tom woke up and started complaining he was "tired".  At this point I could have killed him but refrained.

I had a nice morning planned - top of the list was a trip to Guest Services to enquire as to the whereabouts of Imogen's cot.  After a sleepless night I wasn't in any mood for some bollocks.  Off I popped.  Some poor wee lassie was on the desk of Guest Services, there was a few folk in front of me with their complaints - moaning about how unclean their caravan was or how cold etc  Then I came to the desk.  Ahhh this poor wee girl, what a shite job she has, my heart almost softened at the sight of her being driven demented by the demanding public.  Almost. "Good Morning" she said.  "Yes, morning indeed" I decided that was enough of the niceness so continued  "I had ordered a cot for my 8 month old daughter.  I phoned here 5 times yesterday to find out where it was, my husband even came down once to speak to someone about it. I was assured it was on its way.  Guess what?  It never appeared"  Silence. In fact the whole room went silent.  Some random wifey standing next to me did that whole sucking in of breath between teeth thing and said "oh dear, that's not good"  No.  No it's not.  The wee lassie behind the desk scuttled away to make a phone call.  She arrived back full of apologies and they are a  bit confused as they are sure the cot was delivered.  But, fear not, a manager is on his way now to my caravan with my cot and also my DVD player (which was missing from the caravan - probably stolen) so I can speak to him about it.

So I head back to the caravan and wait on this manager to appear.  And appear he did, with cot and DVD player in hand.  He's a bit bemused as to how the cot wasn't delivered, but we can rest assured that whoever didn't deliver it will be getting a bollocking.  Great!  He then attempted to fit the DVD player - on doing so he managed to break the TV cabinet (leg fell off).  So another man was called who could fix that.  He appeared with a hammer in hand, knocked off the remaining 3 legs and declared that it "looks much better without legs anyway" and off he popped.  Ahhhh....DIY Tom style.  Great.

The rest of the weekend went smoothly, no more attempted killing of chavs, Imogen refused to sleep in her cot so it was a weekend of co-sleeping, Tom got fed up and wanted to lie on the sofa all day watching crap TV, Blaine just wanted to bleed us dry of all our cash in the slot machines.  On one machine you could even win a Sovvy Ring.  Quality.

So this year it was a better holiday.  Nicer park, quieter location, an "older" clientele - no groups of youths getting pished and looking for some ladies to "entertain". 

We left on Monday and drove home, all exhausted.  Blaine pipes up "Mummy, are you working tomorrow?"  "No" I reply "I'm off all week"  Blaine shows great excitement "Oh great Mummy!  We can come back tomorrow then - can you book it when you get home"  Hmmm.... let me think. No.

Holidays from Hell. Part one.

Family holidays - you see the adverts on the TV, kids having fun, parents looking all chilled out, loads of fun-filled activities for the family to enjoy and at a bargain price. Perfect.  Blaine is an avid viewer of kids TV - where they hammer home these said holidays.  Last year he went on and on and on about going on holiday - staying in a caravan, going to kids clubs, he went on about it so much that in the end his Papa booked us a family holiday for Blaine's birthday (my dad would do anything for his grandkids, just to see them happy) he got a "good deal" and off we popped.

Let's now look at the reality of these "perfect" holidays.....

The caravan was a top of the range thingy, it even had heating in the bedrooms - see, this is how posh we are. 3 bedrooms, one en-suite, kitchen and open plan living room - sounds lovely.  A home from home.  Yeeesss, that is if you live in a box.  By looking at the website it shows loads of kids having fun, loads of activities for the lovely, well-behaved children to enjoy, delicious meals served in their clean and welcoming restaurant/pub things and luxury caravans.  Sounds good eh?

Last year this is what happened.  We arrived at midday, greeted at the door by a bunch of chavs who had a staffie bull-terrier type of beast on a lead with a muzzle on (I suppose I can be grateful that it had a muzzle on) The chavs were all smoking, swearing, spitting - usual chavvy behaviour, wearing their Rangers/Celtic tops and a variety of sports gear - mainly tracksuits and, of course, the Sovvy Rings. Nice.  Fucking great.  Just so you know - I don't consider myself as posh by any standards, but compared to this lot I'm like the fucking Queen. 

We check in and the lassie at the desk shows us how to get to our luxury caravan.  I have requested a caravan in a quiet area of the park.  She kinda laughed and looked at me as if I was totally mental.  I didn't think it was too much to ask..... but I soon realised that there's no such thing as a "quiet area" in these establishments. 

Our caravan is situated next to the Karting Track.  Great.  From 10am-6pm I hear music blaring and the sounds of go-karts zipping past the caravan.  There is also a walkway beside the caravan which the local piss-heads use to stagger to and from the pub at all hours of day and night. 

So we unpack and decide to make the most of it - Blaine is hyper, he thinks this place is amazing.  To be fair the pool was great - loads for Blaine to do, lots of opportunity to drown some chavs and it was even clean.  Perfect.  So that's where we spent the majority of the holiday.  Tom and I were deranged by the end of Friday, we were exhausted, Blaine was hyper - all the flashing lights, loud noise, thousands of other screaming hyper kids made Blaine turn into some sort of Ferrel animal.  Great.  Stressed out our heads and I couldn't even turn to wine or vodka to help me out as I was preggy.  Bed-time was erm...fun....in the end I think we gave up and just let him jump about until he had worn himself out so much he crashed out - normally after we'd crashed out ourselves. 

The food was horrific.  Like proper minging.  We had also booked Half Board.  It was in some kinda canteen type place, the food was just slopped onto your plate, the staff were the most unhelpful bunch - it was basically like being back at school, they even had lumpy custard.  But, again, Blaine loved it - scoffing up the greasy chips, even going back for seconds.....

On the Saturday evening we decided we would sample the evening entertainment.  We had our "tea" and headed up to the entertainment complex.  Being preggy and suffering badly with PGP I wasn't the fastest thing on my crutches, hobbling about, which gave us time to enjoy the scenery.  Tom suddenly became quite disturbed and started nudging me "pppppsssssttt.....look at that....look at THAT"  "What?" I ask   "over there....that old wifey on the wall, look, look"  So I look.  And I wish I hadn't.  There, sitting on the wall was this wifey - possibly about 50 (but probably about 30, chavs age fast) with horrific bleached blond hair - dark at the roots, yellow blond, not the thinnest of folk, smoking a fag, squawking at her bairns "Britney, get the fuck down fae that wa' and leave that fucking bairn alone, pass me ma fags - fuck sake" - stereotypical chav -  and then I saw it.  She had a tight white vest top on and a tiny demin skirt.  Sitting on the wall.  Short skirt.  Legs akimbo,  and no knickers.  I saw what this wifey had for breakkie and it wasn't nice.  Trust me.  And that's basically the type of clientelle this certain caravan park had on offer.  To fit in I was going to have to remove my knickers- not an easy task when preggy, bending is a problem.  So I decided to keep them on, it will also keep me warmer at night - as the caravans are baltic.

The evening entertainment was more ridiculously loud music - kids running about screaming, parents sitting there who couldn't give a toss and are just getting bladdered on strong, cheap cider or lager.  Or maybe even a Snakebite.  Sometimes they look up from their pint to shout some abuse at their kids, who pay no attention what so ever.

After our weekend away Blaine was so excited he wanted to go back.  Tom and I are not as impressed and vow to come back when Hell freezes over.  Or when I can actually drink to get through it.

So the reality is more like this:

• Freezing caravan, even in July, in a LOUD area as there are no quiet areas in these places.
• Spending a ridiculous amount of money on the puggys (slot machines) that are there to entice the kids to play them - you spend about £50 to get 200 tokens to "spend" only to discover that 200 tokens only gets you a pencil.  Fuck sake.
• Food is like old school slop, the pub food is over-priced microwave meals.  Go self-catering (that is if you remember the matches to light the cooker)
• Relaxing!?!?  No, not in the slightest, spending the weekend with crying/screaming/hyper kids everywhere is not my idea of fun. 

And after that weekend I needed another holiday to recover, preferably child-free. 

We did do another caravan holiday.  That's the next blog.....

The School Holidays Commence............

Friday was the last day of Blaine's first year at primary school.  We have survived the first year without some form or metal breakdown, not turning into a raving alcoholic (although being pregnant helped with that) and Blaine never got expelled.  Result.  He was in a right grump in the morning, didn't appear to happy about this (he seems to like school for some mad reason) so wasn't really co-operating at all.  Unfortunately I had to leave early for work so Mum was left to deal with him. Shame.  Mum somehow managed to get him to school without having a breakdown/resorting to wine or selling him on E-Bay, so well done her.  So off he popped - for his very last day, with instructions to "remember and hand out your party invitations - they are in your bag"  Of course he forgot.

Blaine finished school at 3:15pm, I was still stuck at work so mum picked him up.  So the holidays commenced......

To start the school holidays Blaine decided that he might as well be a tad naughty and piss in next door neighbours garden. Over her wall, while her visitors are watching. The visitors thought it was funny.  My neighbour didn't.  Luckily I was at work...... Mum, being all old and experienced, dealt with the neighbour in a polite manner and without any violence, while Blaine hid in his room.  The neighbour was a tad pissed off (rightly so) and now thinks Blaine should probably get an ASBO.  When I arrive home from work my mum tells me the news and I have to speak to Blaine.  Sigh.  "I'm sorry!" He said immediately - first sign of guilt.  "Sorry for what?" I ask..... he ponders, I can see his mind working, he's thinking "hmmmm....I don't think she knows, so I think I'll lie"  "Nothing" is his reply "I didn't do anything" Ahhhh the phrase that just hammers home the guilt "I didn't do anything"  I ignore his plea of innocence and ask him what on earth possessed him to piss on the neighbours wall "I needed to pee" was his innocent response, "I was proper bursting, I couldn't keep it in" another sigh.  "Blaine - the next time you need to pee you must do it in the toilet, you can't just pee anywhere!" Blaine ponders this for a moment..... "can I pee in our garden?"  "No" "Can I pee in the shed?" WTF?!?  NO! NO PEEING OUTSIDE!

I think it's going to be a looooooong summer holiday......

I then went to the pub.